Book
After the end / Clare Mackintosh.
Record details
- ISBN: 9780451490568
- Physical Description: 390 pages ; 24 cm
- Publisher: New York : G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2019.
- Copyright: ©2019.
Search for related items by subject
| Subject: | Terminally ill children > Fiction. |
| Genre: | Domestic fiction. |
Available copies
- 2 of 2 copies available at South Interlake Regional Library.
Holds
- 0 current holds with 2 total copies.
Other Formats and Editions
| Location | Call Number / Copy Notes | Barcode | Shelving Location | Holdable? | Status | Due Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stonewall Library | FIC MACKINTOSH (Text) | 3678714817 | Fiction | Volume hold | Available | - |
| Teulon Library | FIC MACKINTOSH (Text) | 3678714818 | Fiction | Volume hold | Available | - |
- Booklist Reviews : Booklist Reviews 2019 May #2
Heart-breaking tragedy and unthinkable decisions lie at the center of Mackintosh's fourth novel, a turn towards a different type of suspense. Max and Pip Adams are the perfect couple, and they're living the perfect life until their three-year-old son, Dylan, becomes critically ill. Forced to make a choice about his care and future, they find themselves at an impasse, unable to agree on which path is right. But what if it were possible to go down both roads? Mackintosh uses a clever combination of alternate narration and parallel stories to explore what happens to the Adams' relationship if each of the possibilities is chosen. Inspired by a similar situation with her own son, Mackintosh makes readers question what makes a choice right or wrong. How can you move forward if you never know whether or not you did the right thing? Max and Pip are thoroughly relatable, compelling, and as are most people, complex. Sure to keep fans of Jodi Picoult or of Tayari Jones' An American Marriage (2018) thinking about issues of morality and marriage long after the last page. Copyright 2019 Booklist Reviews. - Kirkus Reviews : Kirkus Reviews 2019 April #2
A married couple must make an agonizing decision about their critically ill young son. Dylan Adams, an almost 3-year-old English boy, is in pediatric intensive care when we meet him, having endured several rounds of chemotherapy as well as surgery to remove a brain tumor. His devoted parentsâMax, an American business analyst, and Pip, a British flight attendant (the family lives near Birmingham, England)âwant nothing more than to bring their boy home. Eventually, though, Dylan's doctor, Leila Khalili, presents them with an excruciating choice. Pip favors one option; Max, another. This is grim material, and in other hands, the story easily could have turned mawkish. But Mackintosh, a British author of mystery-thrillers (Let Me Lie, 2018, etc.), gets a lot of things right. She's a natural writer, and her powers of observation are keen: "It takes practice, speaking to a sedated child," she writes, then goes on to explain why. Everything, at least in the first half of the novel, feels true. (In an afterword, the author reveals that she and her husband w ere once compelled to make a similar decision.) The book is also briskly plotted, an unlikely page-turner. The story is told in the alternating voices of Pip and Max; there's also a third perspectiveâthat of Leila, the sympathetic doctor, whose narrative provides some relief from the intensity of the other two accounts. The book falters in the overlong second half. The author imagines dual outcomes to her story, which seems gimmickyâthings get complicated (and sometimes confusing) as well as repetitive. Plus, Max's downward trajectory doesn't seem entirely credible; neither do some of his personal choices. But the ending, if not exactly happy, is authentically hopeful. While occasionally overwrought, this is a perceptive, skillfully told story about a profoundly painful subject. Copyright Kirkus 2019 Kirkus/BPI Communications. All rights reserved. - Library Journal Reviews : LJ Reviews 2019 February #1
Max and Pip are close-as-breathing until their son falls dangerously ill, with his very survival in question. The doctors have left the parents with some big decisions, and each has a different vision of how things should unfold. A departure from suspense for
Copyright 2019 Library Journal.New York Times best-selling author Mackintosh (I Let You Go ). - Publishers Weekly Reviews : PW Reviews 2019 April #4
Mackintosh veers from the thrillers for which she is known (
Copyright 2019 Publishers Weekly.I Let You Go , etc.) into quieter, but no less captivating, territory. Loving couple and fond parents Max and Pip Adams, who live in London, are devastated when their two-year-old son, Dylan, is diagnosed with a brain tumor. After an operation and the growth of the tumor leave him with a severely diminished quality of life, they must make the difficult decision whether to attempt to prolong his life or allow him to die naturally. When they find that they cannot agree on an answer, the case is taken to a judge to decide. Then, in brief, alternating chapters, Mackintosh imagines how life would proceed for the family and its members under both outcomesâthough the imagined futures are perhaps not as different as one might expect. Mackintosh has a workmanlike prose style, and some may feel that she lets her characters off too easily, but this is at its core a novel about hope and recovery from loss, and the author's dextrous handling of the twin story lines will keep readers rapt. This is tailor-made for book clubs and for fans of Jodi Picoult. (June)
